Saturday, 29 May 2010

Becoming A Real Australian, Govt Bigotry.

Last Wednesday the funeral of my dear friend Harry Arthur Lidbetter went off with little fuss and with great dignity.

More the pity that Stan also a friend turned up with a Royal Navy White Ensign after someone had draped the coffin with the Australian Navy Ensign.

Harry, Stanley, myself and others now well in their eighties did the hard yards for the benefit of Australia with the British Pacific Fleet during WW2. Unlike my forty years some of these men have resided in Australia most of their adult life prior to serving as children in the Royal Navy and despite all and being Australians by choice were denied the basic award to similar serving Australians.

To me it seemed the draping of the Australian Ensign on Harry's coffin was an admittance at least he deserved a Posthumous Goldcard.

Vale Harry. On behalf of the HMS King George V (Australia) Association.

To Veteran Affairs.

Q;: When will you cease spending more on the * dead and chicken hawk politicians rather than a few old blokes who did as much or more for Australia than a few minimal qualifiers managed, I lost a brother and a relative also many friends, and hundreds of shipmates during our last twelve months of the pacific campaign.

* Monuments galore !!, "How many more do we need. Thousands of millions of Dollars spent on even more memorials in stead of on the needy by Bigoted Politicians, How many more gold plated names of non combatant tree planting and memorial commemorating politicians will head the list of those who fell but mentioned in lesser inscription.

How many times must I tell my doctors who treat me and others like myself who feel like 3rd class citizens when the subject of the GOLD CARD is raised"

" When will I become a Real Australian" ? What is the real essence of the reason for the likes of us being snubbed, even when my local polly tells me I am definitely.an Australian citizen?

"How many Classes (Castes) or layers of basic perception of Australian inhabitants are there?

MUMBAI: More than six decades after Independence, freedom fighters who helped overthrow foreign rule are struggling against the bureaucracy of modern India.

“We were better under British rule,’’ wrote 82-year-old S J Chughani, president of the Mumbai Freedom Fighters Sabha, in recent letters to the state and central governments to express the sabha’s frustration at the slow pace at which applications for freedom fighter status, under the Centre’s Swatantra Sainik Samman Scheme, are approved.

Thousands across the nation still await ‘freedom fighter’ status and the pension and benefits that come with it. This includes at least 350 people from Mumbai and hundreds more across Maharashtra, which was a hotbed of the freedom movement.

Speaking of the Mumbai sabha’s experience, Chughani said, “I have exchanged innumerable letters with the President and written to various chief ministers of Maharashtra, but they do not even bother to reply.’’ The Mumbai sabha has around 380 members, but only 30 or so are recognised as patriots. The other 350 have been writing to officials for 20 years.

“I am sorry to say that in my last letter to the government I went to the extent of saying that we were better under British rule,’’ Chughani told TOI.

In fact, as recently as May 2010, the Bombay High Court had to tell the state government not to be unfair to Namdeo Gaikwad, whose plea for a pension had been pending before a state panel for several years. Gaikwad, in his 90s, fought for the liberation of Goa.

Pension has been granted to 1.71 lakh freedom fighters or their eligible dependents across the country under the Centre’s Swatantra Sainik Samman Scheme, the main one for this purpose in the country, since its inception in 1972 and till October 2009.

Till January 2010, 17,909 people from Maharashtra had received pension under the scheme, but many more await this recognition even as they and their dependents get along in years.

According to official sources, the Ministry of Home Affairs is in the final stages of clearing the names of 1,614 people who took part in the movements to liberate Goa and Hyderabad. Many of those who fought to liberate Goa are from Maharashtra.

If the recognition to those involved in the Goa Liberation Movement during 1954-55 (Phase II in the documents) comes this year, it would come 55 years after their sacrifice. Likewise, participants of the Hyderabad Liberation Movement during 1947-48 would be getting recognition 62 years after their efforts. Such recognition might be too late, because the freedom fighters and their kin would be well advanced in years or even deceased. Kin like unmarried daughters, widows or parents also get benefits.

One reason for such delays is that certain historical events were not considered part of the freedom struggle for several decades by the government. For instance, only in 2003 did the government allow participants of the Goa Liberation Movement and those of the Hyderabad Liberation Movement to be included on the list of freedom fighters. This also means they can be eligible for pension and benefits only from 2003 onwards.

Chughani recounted the pitched battles that freedom fighters in Mumbai fought with colonial police to challenge foreign rule. His office at Grant Road is now the nodal point for several freedom fighters to come together and share their problems. “I have met almost every minister and MP who matters. But nothing has been done. We just want our due, but what really hurts is that in many cases they do not even reply to our letters,’’ Chughani said.

Pension is granted according to guidelines in the Swatantra Sainik Samman Scheme. In 2009-10 alone, the central government spent Rs 578 crore on benefits such as free railway passes, medical facilities, accommodation and monthly pensions, which can be as high as Rs 7,000 depending on which movement the freedom fighter was involved in. The largest number of beneficiaries of the scheme are from Bihar, followed by West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. A large contingent of freedom fighters who fought under the banner of the Subhas Chandra Bose-led Indian National Army have been recognised by the government.

There have even been fake claimants, with the authorities coming across 35 cases last year in which details had been fudged to portray oneself as a freedom fighter.

Jim me lad, the problem seems destined for the back burner, I am surprised that any sub continent castes of the hoi poloi ever make it to 80 plus, I reckon Vestie has more chance as an Aus/Brit of obtaining the elusive gold card.

Men can never stop dreaming. Dreams are the food of the soul, just as food is to the body.

In our life we often see our dreams come undone, yet it is necessary to go on dreaming, otherwise our soul dies

In his famous sermon on dreams, Martin Luther King reminds us of the fact that Jesus asked us to love our enemies, not to like them.

This greater love is what drives us to go on fighting in spite of everything, to keep faith and joy, and to fight the Good Fight.

The Good Fight is the one we wage because our heart asks for it.

Nowadays, however, the world has changed and the Good Fight has been moved from the battle fields to within us.

The Good Fight is the one we wage on behalf of our dreams. When they explode in us with all their might

– in our youth – we have a great deal of courage, but we still have not learned to fight. After much effort we eventually learn to fight, and then we no longer have the same courage to fight.

This makes us turn against ourselves and we start fighting and becoming our own worst enemy.

We say that our dreams were childish, difficult to make come true, or the fruit of our ignorance of the realities of life.

We kill our dreams because we are afraid of fighting the Good Fight.

The first symptom that we are killing our dreams is lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life had time for everything. Those who did nothing were always tired and could hardly cope with the little work they had to do, always complaining that the day was too short.

In fact, they were afraid of fighting the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams are our certainties. Because we do not want to see life as a great adventure to be lived, we begin to feel that we are wise, fair and correct in what little we ask of our existence.

We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day life and hear the noise of spears clashing, feel the smell of sweat and gun-powder, see the great defeats and the faces of warriors thirsty for victory.

But we never perceive the joy, the immense joy in the heart of those who are fighting, because for them it does not matter who wins or loses, what matters only is to fight the Good Fight.

Finally, the third symptom of the death of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon, not asking too much of us and not asking more than what we want to give.

So we feel that we are “mature”, leave aside the “fantasies of childhood” and guarantee our personal and professional success.

We are surprised when someone our age says they still want this or that out of life. But deep in our heart we know that what has happened is that we gave up fighting for our dreams, fighting the Good Fight.

When we give up our dreams and find peace, we enjoy a period of tranquility. But our dead dreams begin to rot inside us and infest the whole atmosphere we live in.

We start acting cruel towards those around us, and eventually begin to direct this cruelty towards ourselves. Sickness and psychoses appear.

What we wanted to avoid in fighting – disappointment and defeat – becomes the only legacy of our cowardice.

And one fine day the dead and rotten dreams make the air difficult to breathe and then we want to die, we want death to free us from our certainties, from our worries, and from that terrible Sunday-afternoon peace.

So, to avoid all that, let’s face today with the reverence of mystery and the joy of adventure.

Jimmy, you saying that doesn't necessarily indicate you are a clairvoyant or myself a wastrel, I have just returned from the beauty parlour having had a cut colour lashes and eyebrows done. I shall not mention the cost to hubby right now. Hubby is not well at the moment, has been off colour all week, he is also a trifle concerned about his newly discovered niece who lives in England failing to communicate for some time now.Unfortunately I have had to delete some of your ribald messages which you must be aware of Vest - Hubby and I find unnecessary.

The soft knock on my bedroom door woke me up and started my heart pounding. "Come in," I called. I sat up in my bed and turned, dropping my legs over the side, so I was facing the door.

The door opened and she walked into my room, looking incredibly nervous. She was wearing a long, worn bathrobe that, before hundreds of washings, was a pink plaid belted around her waist. Her fingers clutched the neck of the robe, holding that shut, as if she wanted to be sure nothing showed. Her hair straight and black, not long just up to her neck

She wore no makeup and was plain, but she did have the kind of features that made her a woman you'd notice without being sure why. Her big brown eyes were open wide and darted around the room, showing her nervousness...or was it fear?

She stood almost five feet ten inches tall in her slippers and was sixty six years old, although her unlined face and clear skin made her look much younger than that. Her name is Sally...she was my secret love.

Controversies have dogged George Fernandes ever since he entered politics.

During emergency he was implicated in the infamous Baroda Dynamite Case.

As a Minister for Industries in the Janata Party government, he ordered IBM and Coca Cola to "pack their bags" and exit the Indian economy.

His tenure as a Defence Minister was a controversial one. Earlier a staunch supporter of nuclear disarmament, George Fernandes did a volte-face and openly endorsed the NDA Government's decision to test nuclear and hydrogen bombs in Pokharan, Rajasthan.

He openly branded China as India's enemy No. 1 and criticized Chinese policy of providing sophisticated weapons to Pakistan. He also has rapped the Chinese for strengthening their military across the Himalayas in Tibet and also consistently supported the cause of Tibetan people against Chinese occupation.[6]

George Fernandes also claimed that he was strip-searched twice at Dulles airport when he was defense minister—once on an official visit to Washington in early 2002 and another time while en route to Brazil in mid 2003.[7]

The details of the strip-search were mentioned in senior US diplomat Strobe Talbott's book.

However the US embassy denied that George Fernandes was strip-searched in US airports[8]; subsequently the senior US state department official, Richard Armitage, personally apologized to Fernandes over the incident.

After being diagnosed with Alzheimers and Parkinson's disease, Fernandes has been facing issues with his wife Leila and son Sean Fernandes.

A section of media has highlighted the treatment mettled out to him and the revoking of access to his long time colleague and former president of the Samata Party of India Jaya Jaitly.[citation needed]

The issue took an ugly turn on February 20, 2010 when Fernandes was declared missing and accusations were made against his estranged wife Leila and son Sean.

At the heart of this custody issue is believed to be access to property worth over Rupees 25 Crore held by Fernandes.[10]

The boy goes inside and is taken to the dinner table where the girl's parents are seated. The boy quickly offers to say grace and bows his head. A minute passes, and the boy is still deep in prayer, with his head down.

10 minutes pass, and still no movement from the boy.

Finally, after 20 minutes with his head down, the girlfriend leans over and whispers to the boyfriend, 'I had no idea you were this religious.'

A girl asks her boyfriend to come over Friday night to meet, and have a dinner with her parents.

Since this is such a big event, the girl announces to her boyfriend that after dinner, she would like to go out and make love for the first time.

The boy is ecstatic, but he has never had sex before, so he takes a trip to the pharmacist to get some condoms. He tells the pharmacist it's his first time and the pharmacist helps the boy for about an hour. He tells the boy everything there is to know about condoms and sex.

At the register, the pharmacist asks the boy how many condoms he'd like to buy, a 3-pack, 10-pack, or family pack. The boy insists on the family pack because he thinks he will be rather busy, it being his first time and all.

That night, the boy shows up at the girl's parents house and meets his girlfriend at the door.

New Delhi – Soma Maiti did not think that her caste was a big deal until she fell in love.

The Brahmin – a member of the caste at the top of Hinduism’s vast hierarchy – had always had friends from lower castes.

Like most modern, urban Indians, she considered herself largely blind to the ancient system that for millenniums determined position in life in India.

But when the charity worker from West Bengal told her parents she wanted to marry a low-caste man, they were appalled.

“They immediately tried to get me married to someone they regarded as eligible simply because he was a Brahmin,” says Maiti, who married the man of her choice and endured five years of silence from her family.

In an acknowledgment of the role caste continues to play in Indians’ lives, the government is considering including caste in its once-a-decade census.

If it does, it will be the first time Indians will be asked their caste since 1931, when the country was ruled by the British.

The proposal has whipped up a storm of controversy, with critics of the plan arguing that including caste in the census will reinforce an unjust and divisive system that India’s Constitution sought to banish 60 years ago.

Indeed, after winning independence in 1947, India’s political leaders erased caste from official forms and records.

The Congress Party, which formed independent India’s first government and has led the country for much of its subsequent history, has repeatedly resisted calls to include caste in the census in recent years.

Its change of heart is probably prompted in part by political considerations. The calls have come from a number of regional caste-based parties that have sprung up in the last two decades, using caste inequality to mobilize voters.

As head of a coalition government, without a majority, Congress needs the support of smaller parties such as these to push through important legislation in the coming months.

Benefits for bottom castes But many also believe that a nationwide caste count is necessary to bring greater social justice.

This is largely because India reserves a percentage of government jobs and places in universities for low castes.

The Constitution, drawn up in 1950, set in place quotas for Dalits, the group formerly known as untouchables that languishes at the bottom of the caste heap.

In 1990, the government extended some reservations to a group of castes a little higher up the pecking order, but also marginalized, known as Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

The problem is, without up-to-date figures, quota allocations are made on the basis of data from the census of 1931 – by any reckoning out of date.

“How can you have reservations when you don’t know how many lower castes there are?” asks Mahesh Rangarajan, a historian at Delhi University. “Including caste in the census is an important step forward.”

A social stain Critics of the plan argue that India is becoming less caste-conscious and that bringing caste back into the census is a regressive step.

Economic development has had a more transformative effect on social hierarchies than more than six decades of reservations.

As millions of Indians have migrated to urban areas in search of work, they have exchanged the rigid social groupings of villages for the relative anonymity of cities, and swapped inherited trades for jobs in which family background is largely insignificant.

Caste nonetheless remains an inescapable part of Indian life. Marriage ads, listed by caste and subcaste, fill the classified sections of weekend newspapers.

Brahmins, the loftiest caste, still dominate many professions.

No Dalits feature in India’s new billionaire lists.

Caste feeling manifests itself in more sinister ways, too.

Police believe that the recent murder of a young journalist, engaged to a man from a lower caste, was one of a growing number of “honor killings” in which families avenge inter-caste marriages.

Discrimination is most evident, however, in the routine wretchedness of the lives of Dalits who remain India’s poorest and least educated people.

“Caste is very much alive – why pretend otherwise?” says Aditi Phadnis, political editor of the Business Standard, a leading daily newspaper.

Countless subcastes She, like many, however, points out that there will be huge practical obstacles if the government does decide to include caste in the census.

India has four main caste groups but innumerable subcastes – some put the figure as high as 30,000 – and it is unclear how their differences should be tabulated.

If people think certain castes come with benefits, they could be more likely to lie. And if, as seems likely, India will be found to have more low castes than is currently assumed, it will face a flood of requests to increase the number of reservations available to them.

Already, the government is battling campaigns from non-OBC castes, Muslims, and Hindu converts to Christianity to be included in reservation lists.

As more jobs are created in the business sector, another campaign to extend quotas to jobs in the private sector is gaining momentum.Many commentators point out that India needs better jobs and services for its poorest people instead of handouts based on their inherited status.

“At one stroke,” wrote commentator Pratap Bhanu Mehta of the plan in the Indian Express newspaper, “it trivializes all that modern India has stood for and condemns it to the tyranny of an insidious kind of identity politics.”

The Bramins get the large slice of the cake regardles of their abilities, the untouchables will always have the crumbs if any. but what happens should an untouchable win a large lottery? would he have higher privilege and be able to kick less wealthy Brahmin arses?Another case of the wealthy but ignorant eccleslasticals teaching a load of impractical religeous bollocks to equally ignorant but lesser placed persons.

Think it more satifactory to live richly than die rich.

For my unmet Relatives who may for their untold reasons consider themselves above the lower pecking orders by casting aside any further attempts of reunification of the families, how sad for you.May my maker grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

NOt in india but in asia,like Quta,Malaysai,Singapore,does are the country we opperate

If we could buy this product (Agroblin API) from the supplier in Malaysia, then we can jointly sell it to a company with a very high profit margin.

For instance, this product is sold for $3,900.00USD per carton by the supplier and the company in question is willing and ready to buy it for $8,600.00USD per carton cash on delivering (C.O.D).that is how we buy all over

One thing is certain, however. Our society is in the midst of an immense demographic change. Every day over six thousand Americans turn sixty. Altogether, forty-five million people or one out of every six of us are sixty or older.

By the year 2006 baby boomers will begin to dramatically expand the ranks of the older population as they themselves start turning sixty.

In about twenty five years, one in five Americans, including the boomers, will be over sixty-five-a historically unprecedented 20 percent of the population.

The definition of old age is changing. In June 2000, The New Yorker Magazine ran a cartoon showing a woman announcing to her husband, "Good news, honey- seventy is the new fifty."

That same year a Harris Poll found that only 14 percent of respondents believed chronological age was the best marker of old age.

Instead, 41 percent cited a "decline in physical ability"-a highly variable event-as the best evidence of the beginning of old age.

According to this definition, people in good health are younger longer, whereas anyone who gets sick becomes older sooner. As for disability itself, studies show that there have been significant declines in disability rates since 1982. Heart disease and stroke alone have been reduced 60 percent since 1950.

When I casually asked my friend Katie about secret turn-ons for women, she didn't hesitate for a second. "Doing the dishes," she responded, as her husband looked at her in disbelief.

"That's hot!"

For many women, turn-ons aren't necessarily about traditional romantic gestures like getting roses on Valentine's Day or canoodling during candlelit dinners.

Simple everyday rituals like pitching in with the dishes or having coffee together at sunrise can be downright sexy. (Listen up, fellas, you don't even need to spring for a card.)

"When a partner can really count on these kinds of little loving gestures on an ongoing basis, it really makes for the kind of connection that's absolutely necessary to have a relationship hang on through the good and the bad and all the crazy stuff," says Sharon Gilchrest O'Neill, EdS, LMFT, a couples therapist in Mt. Kisco, N.Y. and author of A Short Guide to a Happy Marriage.

A Cup of Joe at SunriseBeverly Solomon of Lampasas, Texas, has been married to artist and designer Pablo Solomon for 35 years and works side-by-side with him managing their art business."Of course, there are many reasons that our love has endured," she says, "but the one thing that I really love is that Pablo brings me my first cup of coffee each morning."

He rises much earlier than she does and brews coffee as he begins working on his art. When he sees her bedside light turn on, he brings her coffee over to her.

"We usually have a cup together on our veranda while watching the sun come up over our ranch," she says. "We like to give thanks and to plan our day."

Need a Ride, BabyAfter an especially long day at work, Robin Siebold, a psychotherapist in Melbourne, Fla., says her husband of five years knows exactly how to lift her spirits. He will surprise her by showing up at her workplace with his tow truck and loading her car onto his flatbed.

"I feel like I am always putting out fires at work so at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is one more thing, like drive home," she says. "So when I walk out of work and he is sitting in the parking lot patiently waiting for me, it always makes me smile! And I feel appreciated."

About Me

Ardent family orientated bloke,love my family lots.
Love Australia my Beautiful adopted country, but remember passionately my home village, Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, England. My favourite friends would include several shipmates I am in close contact with who served with me while in the British Royal Navy ..going back a fair bit.
There is also the silence of my age, too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it - in words intelligible to those who have not lived-the great range of my life.
Vest.GSM, LSGCM, WM, B/PM, ITM, UNM, K-N M, EOW M, Asia- PAC M. ROYAL NAVY 25yrs, Retired.